A museum in Denmark asks an artist to return the money after handing over two blank canvases

Two blank canvases.

That’s what the Aalborg Kunsten Museum of Contemporary Art received, Denmark, in response to the request that he made to the Danish Jens Haaning.

The gallery asked the 56-year-old artist, who is known for his critical works on money, racism, power and marginalized groups, to recreate a previous work of his made up of two glass paintings full of banknotes, one with 328,000 crowns and another with 25,000 euros, which reflected the average annual salary of Denmark and Austria.

The works were to be part of an exhibition with pieces by 22 artists where the main theme was the role of the individual in the current job market.

Faced with this proposition, the Danish artist borrowed 550,000 Danish crowns, about $ 83,000, to include them in your pictures and then return them.

The surprise came when the museum received the two white paintings under title Take the Money and Run (“Take the money and run”).

Now the museum demands the borrowed money from him.

“It’s museum money and we have a contract that says the money should be back on January 16“Lasse Andersson, director of the museum, told the program. Newsday de la BBC.

Although he acknowledged that it also made him laugh. “[La obra] provoked the curators and me a bit too, but at the same time I laughed because it was very humorous”.

Nevertheless Haaning, 56, is not so clear.

“The work is that I have taken your money”, He told the radio dr.dk.

“I encourage other people who have working conditions as miserable as mine to do the same”He said, adding that recreating his previous jobs would have cost him money out of his own pocket.

But speaking to the BBC, Andersson refuted Haaning’s claim that the museum had not agreed to pay him fairly.

“We have just signed an agreement with the Danish Artists Association that increases what artists are paid when they exhibit“, said.

“I think Jens broke the deal”.